Tuesday, January 13, 2015

5 Arisi Sakkarai Pongal Recipe | Pongal Recipes 2015

Sakkarai Pongal is a must for pongal festival. We always make Sakkarai pongal with jaggery and Paal pongal but amma always says pongal made with sugar / sugar candy tastes equally good.So this year when I was thinking of what to post for pongal 2015, I saw this 5 arisi pongal in my chettinad cookbook my athai gave me,but the one given was ven pongal version, I loved the idea of making pongal with a combination of 5 rice varieties so adapted the recipe and came up with this sweet pongal.It is sure a different take to our usual jaggery sakkarai pongal, it tasted more like kalkandu pongal.

My brother tasted this and said he totally loved it. He also said that he wanted me to share the recipe with his mother......Ahhh I was flying :) but I know that was too much of a credit as my athai is a great cook, she is the one who gave me this chettinad cookbook.He said he had never liked kalandu pongal and this tastes just awesome, only after he wiped the bowl clean I revealed that this pongal also had kalkandu in it :)

Method:

Measure and keep all your rice ready.Now mix basmati rice,raw rice and idli rice together and dry roast it for till slightly golden.Cool down and transfer to a mixer.

Just pulse it few times to get it broken,Set aside.Dry roast sago for few mins, don't let it change its color.Cool down and transfer to mixer.

Just pulse it few times to get it broken,Set aside.Dry roast poha for few mins until nice aroma comes, cool down and transfer to a mixer.

Just pulse it few times to get it broken,Set aside.Dry roast monng dal till slightly golden,set aside.Nollect all your ingredients in a mixing bowl along with moong dal.

Rinse it well.Then transfer it to a pressure cooker.Pressure cook with enough water for atleast 3-4 whistles in low medium flame.Once pressure releases, mash it well with a laddle.

Now switch on and add sugar candy along with sugar.Mix well, it melts easilyso just keep mixing.The mixture will loosen, then add milk and let it boil for 5-10mins in low flame.If it gets too thick add little water.Add a tiny pinch of salt.

In a tadka pan add 1 tbsp ghee, fry cashews first when it starts to turn golden add raisins and cloves.Fry till raisins bubbles up well.Now add ghee drained from frying the cashews, along with cloves and cardamom powder.Mix well till it gets a glaze finish, simmer for 2mins till ghee is absorbed.Then add fried cashews and raisins.Mix well and switch off.

Serve hot with a generous drizzle of ghee, heaven I say :)

My Notes:

Don't change the color of the ingredients while roasting, we need the white color to be retained in our pongal.

I had trouble pulsing sago as it was getting powdered and I was not getting a coarse mixture so I just pulsed it for few times and let it as such to cook, It was all fine when it got cooked.

As each rice takes different time and ratio to get cooked we need to pulse them fine so that while pressure cooking it cooks easily.

The orginal recipe called for semiya, I replaced it with basmati rice.

You can even make ven pongal using the same ingredients.

You can even use little more moong dal say 4 tbsp.As the orginal recipe said rice should be more dominant I followed the same measures but its your preference, plus or minus accoridng to your taste.

If you don't have sugar candy, just replace it with sugar.Adjust sugar accordingly.